State Supreme Court Judge Ferris D. Lebous will be asked Friday to decide whether a local church or a regional diocese owns property on Conklin Avenue, which is occupied by Church of the Good Shepherd.
The decision, whether rendered Friday or more likely reserved by Lebous for a future date, could be a precedent in ongoing legal disputes in New York state and elsewhere between the Episcopal Church and individual congregations that have withdrawn from the national denomination.
That split came when V. Gene Robinson, a self-avowed homosexual, was ordained a bishop in 2003.
Not sure why the diocese would want the church. If it is beginning to thrive, perhaps the diocese could offer to sell it to the parishioners. It can be a 25 year mortgage for the property, which would probably look a lot like an assessment (but perhaps much less!).
If the parish decides to change its mind at some point, it always has the option of returning.
Is not that the sound of trumpets, from afar (815), playing the Deguello
John, you are also forgetting that +KJS has decreed that no church will be sold to those leaving for another Anglican jurisdiction, though a church can be sold to become a nightclub, another church of any kind, even a mosque. (This is not facetious – she said this with regard to churches in other dioceses in the press.)
Dear John,
I find myself in full agreement with you on this one (#1).
Dosen’t happen often, but it’s good to read something Christian and objective from some one of opposite persuation. Must be something in the air. Advent spirit, may be?
Whatever it is, thanks be to God.
Fr. Kingsley Jon-Ubabuco